This month – March 8, to be exact – we were permitted one day of the year where the patriarchy momentarily stepped back from its oppressive regime.
A benevolent gesture, us womenfolk were granted the privilege of indulging in cupcakes at morning teas, receiving shoutouts from male colleagues in performative LinkedIn posts, and empowered by multinational conglomerates emailing us discount codes.
A wonderful way to celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women, International Women’s Day (IWD) 2024 did not disappoint. I didn’t smash any glass ceilings for fear of chipping my freshly painted manicure, but I was fortunate to receive a slew of emails from brands that wouldn’t know the difference between an intersectional feminist and an intersection.
Leading up to the auspicious occasion, a Pilates studio masterfully shamed my abdominal muscles with an email carrying the subject line ‘5 signs you have a weak core’. Then, a number of fashion brands with questionable workplace cultures or lack of transparency around the rights of factory workers gushed about being pro-women. I wondered if gaslighting, gatekeeping and girl-bossing was trending on TikTok.
The cherry on top was a tongue-in-cheek email from one of my favourite beverage brands inviting me to unlock a “pay gap discount!”, presumably an homage to girl math. All I had to do was take a “quick and fun quiz” to reveal my “embarrassingly large pay gap”, then, make up for the gender inequity by cashing it in on a “shamelessly big discount” on a brain-boosting drink.
Hitting unsubscribe on said emails, a pang of deep frustration washed over me as I contemplated how much richer my life would be if I was a man and didn’t feel compelled to apologise in work emails or be told by strangers on the street to smile more.
Jokes aside, IWD serves as another reminder of how far women have come in our fight for gender equality, yet how far we still have to go. It’s part of a broader movement highlighting the obstacles that women grapple with globally, including the fight for autonomy over our reproductive rights, or against economic disparities and domestic abuse.
There are many of us who say that women have it pretty good in 2024. But as someone who hails from a strict, patriarchal Southeast Asian culture, I know all too well the dangers of a structure where ingrained power imbalances lead to the mentality that women need to be subjugated and lessened at all times.
I may be fortunate to live in Aotearoa, a land lauded for giving women the right to vote in 1893. However, they couldn’t stand for office until 1919, and even then, the first female MP wasn’t elected until 1933.
New Zealand is also a country where the rights of Māori women to own or inherit land were curtailed by British colonial rule. It wasn’t until 1884 that women could possess property independent of their husbands. Even as recently as the 1980s, it was still a challenge for single women to take out a mortgage without a guarantee from a male relative.
These inequalities continue to reverberate. To pick just a few examples, according to the OECD, even in 2024, women have lower levels of financial literacy than men. There’s also the gender pay gap, which according to data published by Manatū Wāhine, the Ministry for Women, sat at 8.6% in 2023. And as of July 2022, women held only 28.5% of the directorships, and 26.4% of the executive management positions, in our NZX-listed companies.
As someone who is eight months pregnant, it’s hard not to feel penalised on the basis of sex as I dread the reality of putting my career aspirations on hold and losing financial independence to raise my child, while for my husband, it’s business as usual.
To add to the wider collective doom, recent studies and surveys don’t leave much hope for the younger generation, revealing that Generation Z males (born from 1997-2012) are more likely than baby boomers to perceive feminism as harmful, in stark contrast to their female peers who tend to be more liberal and progressive. Here, factors contributing to this trend include the exposure to online content promoting male supremacy.
The Listener has also highlighted the continuing problems of domestic violence – let’s just call it violence – in its story about the release of the Safer How, Safer When report from Women’s Refuge.
It’s also a time where feminism needs more intersectionality. Transgender women are at risk of being marginalised within society and even wider feminist movements, and along with women of colour and those from other minority groups, they are disproportionately affected by issues like poverty, violence and access to healthcare.
So, here we are, pondering these weighty issues while tolerating insufferable LinkedIn posts and knocking back cupcakes. We’ve got a long way to go to effect social, cultural and economic equality, yet women cannot bear the mental load alone – we rely on men to show their allyship.
So, in the interim, you’ll find me pondering these weighty issues as I work on my weak, post-partum core, my sorrows washed down by discounted beverages.